US expects Pakistan to adhere to sanctions on JuD: Rice

United Nations, Dec 17 (IANS) US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday said she expects Pakistan to “adhere completely” to UN Security Council sanctions on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and other terrorist organisations in letter and spirit.Last week, at the request of India and the US, the UN Security Council had slapped sanctions on JuD and four of its leaders for their alleged involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack. Pakistan followed with a crackdown, which included arrests, freezing their assets and sealing their offices.

When referred to the Pakistani foreign minister’s statement that his government would not take action against the charitable activities of JuD and asked if this would be violation of UN sanctions, Rice told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that it is for Pakistan to figure it out how they are going to implement the Security Council sanctions.

“Pakistan is going to have to untangle the difficult circumstances the Jamaat offers — they are — because I understand there are so called charitable activities. But we learned - the United States learned the hard way - that sometimes these are too intertwined with organizations that have terrorists ties and have just been designated here,” Rice said.

“So we will be pressing all member states to adhere completely and to the letter of the designations that the United Nations has taken,” Rice told reporters, emerging out of the Security Council meeting on issue related to piracy in Somalia.

“I know the Pakistani government to be a government that wants to deal into the good faith of the world. It is the new civilian government that is a legitimate government that wants very much to be respected in international politics,” she said.

Rice said the new Pakistani government wants to deal with terrorism that in itself is having direct consequences on Pakistan. As such, Rice said: “I expect that there will be cooperation.”